Doom(1993) Synth Suggestions?

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1

Hey everyone.

I want to do a few Original Doom(1993) covers in Sonic Pi.

I have done some research, and all about how they tried to get the synth to sound as close to a guitar as they could with the limitations they had, to match their favorite metal songs.

How would you go about getting the same tone? Anyone have any experience trying a sound like this?

2

You probably would use a guitar (software) synthesizer and midi or osc to trigger it.

3

It sounds sample based to me. Where is the article you read? Do you know what waveform and effects they used?

4

@gedobbles I could do it with something external, but the idea is to try and keep it all ā€œin houseā€ in sonic pi. So the solution I"m looking for wouldnā€™t include midi or osc.However, the more I look into it, the more I think I might have to. Meaning I might not do this cover in my Undercover album.

@binarysweets There was a whole section in the book ā€œMasters of Doomā€ that I would have to find, but basically, it is all programmed midi notes running through the soundcard, no guitar samples at all, as far as I can remember.

From one article I found ā€œThe thing to remember is that back in 1993 the music in games was MIDI based. It played back using the crappy little GM synth on your soundcard ā€“ no samples, no audio files. The only samples in DOOM were very short and used for sound effects.ā€

I can find info everywhere about how they made the new doom soundtrack, but I donā€™t want that. I want the original, soundblaster midi-type sound of the original.

5

They say ā€˜no samplesā€™, but I donā€™t think GM synths worked like the modeling synths do in sp.
I found these samples - https://freewavesamples.com/sample-type/guitar
I reckon your best bet is to have a play around with those :slight_smile:

6

Also, this is a good watch (related)

7

Iā€™ve been trying on-and-off for over 2 years to make a decent
electric guitar using just SP. Even posted asking for advice.

I appreciate SP is focused on the ā€˜live codingā€™ of what is basically
EDM. But I still feel it will remain on the margins of software used
to make music until it has at least 1 easy to use ā€˜electricā€™ guitar.

Iā€™ve given up. Good luck.

Eliā€¦

8

I think the closest we have to a guitar currently are either pluck or piano passed through some distortion FX such as krush or tanh.

If there are any synth designs out there then it should be possible to start playing with an approximation in SuperCollider and any resulting synth could be added to an upcoming version of Sonic Pi :slight_smile:

Weā€™re always interested in adding new SuperCollider synthsā€¦

9 
melody1 = ring(:E2,:E2,:E3,:E2,:E2,:D3,:r, :E2,:E2,:C3,:E2,:r, :E2,:A2,:E2,:r,  :E2, :b2, :C3 )
melody2 = ring(:E2,:r, :E3,:E2,:E2, :r, :D3, :E2,:E2,:r, :C3,:E2,:E2,:A2,:r,:r,:r,:r,:r,:r)
melody = melody1 + melody2

use_bpm 140
use_synth :pluck

filterRange = range(59,100,0.3).mirror

with_fx :reverb , room: 0.8 do
  with_fx :echo, phase: 0.25, decay: 1 do
    with_fx :krush , gain: 1.5, cutoff: 0 do  |r|
      live_loop :CLOCKMASTER  do
        play melody.tick ,  release: 1
        sleep 0.25
        control r, cutoff: filterRange.tick
      end
    end
  end
end


live_loop :hihats , sync: :CLOCKMASTER do
  sample :drum_cymbal_closed , amp: 0.5
  
  sleep 0.25
end

live_loop :beat , sync: :CLOCKMASTER do
  sample :bd_haus
  sleep 1
end

I used pluck and krush, and it triggers doom memories - it sound very similar indeed. 5min coding job, sorry, I just wanted to hear pluck and krush msyelf :slight_smile:

1 Like
10

I am sure someone will get it even closer. No idea why i put cutoff at 0, but you may want to fiddle with those anyway.

If you got a good melody-array/ring for that song, please share it too.